1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for transferring information to data terminals via networks, and more particularly to a network system having a server capable of transferring information to various data terminals which are different in capabilities or features from each other, in a manner appropriate to each data terminal.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a network system with a client-server architecture, a plurality of client data terminals generally connect via networks to one or more servers which may be in a central facility of a network organization, such as an Internet service provider. The network organization is thus able to supply services to the data terminals via the networks.
In a conventional network system, most data terminals are stand-alone personal computers ("PCs") capable of communicating over the network. Each PC is enabled to receive information from the server by running programs capable of communicating with the server. In the case of the World Wide Web, for example, once the PC is provided with a Web browser program that can communicate with the server, the PC can always scan, receive and display hypertext markup language (HTML) documents from the World Wide Web via the networks.
Recently, small, and relatively simple (compared to the PC) data terminals have come into use as the client component in network environments. Such terminals include electronic diaries, personal digital assistants ("PDA") and the like. These data terminals often employ a different visual user-interface having e.g. a different display size, a different number of colors to be displayed and the like, than the PC due to their reduced size and/or lower manufacturing cost. These data terminals, however, pose a problem in that they are not able to represent completely the information to be displayed because the information on the server is generally prepared for terminals with all the capabilities of the PC.